


Super-Sense OverLoad

by DopamineLover



Category: Daredevil (TV), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Kinda, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Matt Murdock, Sensory Overload, Sentinel Senses, super senses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:35:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28519509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DopamineLover/pseuds/DopamineLover
Summary: Matt didn't realize just how badly he'd "zone out" due to his super-senses until he sees Peter do the exact same thing. Thankfully, both heroes have friends and family happy to help them learn how to deal with heightened senses and other issues of being crime-fighters.(A little bit of inspiration from The Sentinel in the idea of senses going haywire).
Relationships: Foggy Nelson & Peter Parker, Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson & Karen Page & Peter Parker, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 105





	Super-Sense OverLoad

Peter did this sometimes when he and Matt hung out on patrol or when the kid came to his office right after school. When he came from Midtown, Foggy could sometimes see Peter do it too. Mostly because he can easily pick it out from when Matt does it.

If you were to ask Peter, it’s just a few solid minutes of staring into the middle distance – of looking glazed over. Matt would’ve said the same of himself. It’s just a really bad zone out but his intense sense focus on one ability and one stimulus. Sometimes they went haywire like that. There’s a lot going on in New York, after all. The noises, the smells, the lights. But he’d come to agree with Foggy in Peter’s case of advanced senses.

It was absolutely terrifying.

The first time he noticed Peter doing it, he and Matt were in his office. He noticed because the kid became entirely unresponsive and still. He stopped fidgeting, he stopped talking, and his heart rate dropped suddenly. Matt thought Peter was dying from some unknown cause, or that he’d suddenly dropped dead. So, you can’t blame his panicked yells for Foggy to see what’s wrong with the teenager on his windowsill. He was trying desperately to get Peter’s attention, even while informing Foggy and Karen of the situation – especially the low heart-rate, which is too slow, even for Peter as Spiderman.

And then? Foggy sighed? And Karen wasn’t already calling Stark or May or 911?

“He has super senses like you, right?” Foggy asks, kneeling next to the kid.

Matt nods, unable to form words with the whiplash between his own emotions and Foggy’s calmness.

“Well, he’s in a zone. You do that.”

“Yeah, no. Foggy, when someone zones, they’re not practically catatonic.” Matt waves his hands frantically at Peter. His anger and confusion would bring the devil out if he wasn’t careful.

“Yeah, but _this_ ,” he points at Peter’s still form, staring at the floor as if he wasn’t seeing anything, “ _This_ is a Matthew-Murdock-zone. This is a ‘my super human senses are clocking out big time and are only letting me focus on one goddamn thing’ type of zone.” Foggy’s finally matching Matt’s energy. Which actually might not be so good.

“I don’t – I don’t do that.” Even Matt hears the doubt loud and clear in his voice.

“Sorry, Matt. It’s at least once a week,” Karen corrects him. She ignores Matt’s face of utter disbelief. “Usually Foggy has to hold your hands or your shoulders to get you back down.”

Like it reminded him, Foggy starts similar ministrations on Peter, grabbing the Spider-kid’s hands to ground him.

“We think it’s physical contact that grounds you most,” Karen continues her explanation. “Sometimes it’s Foggy’s or my voice. Sometimes it’s us brewing a pot of coffee before you pull out of it. And then, you’re responsive but dazed and unaware. Sometimes, if it’s bad, you end up falling asleep too.”

“Yeah, the drool ain’t appreciated,” Foggy voices over from where he’s pulled Peter onto the floor to hold him with an arm across the kid’s shoulders. His other hand is rubbing circles on the kid’s arms.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We did,” Karen defends. “You brushed us off. So we figured we’d just help you even if you didn’t believe us. We always thought it was the whole blind thing before we knew Daredevil.”

“I thought the memory gaps were just concussion,” he admits. Wow, how did he never notice how badly he zoned? Or just how much he’s scared his friends? He always knew he’d zone out a little, but never to this extreme. Huh, it would explain why whenever he zoned at the office, he felt much better than when he was alone.

“Probably both,” Foggy laughs, moving his hand to Peter’s head. Matt watches and can hear Pete’s heart start to slowly quicken. He can sense a twitch here and there in his fingers too. It’s after a beat of seeing the slow success that he gets over his amazement.

“What should I do?” Karen gives him a smile as she holds Peter’s hands, picking up where Foggy left off.

“It’s probably his vision that’s taken over. But I think he’s staring at the floor over there. If you can clear his line of sight, that’d help.”

Matt takes it as an order and immediately places his red shaded lenses on Peter’s face, carefully tucking the too large frames behind the kid’s ears. He lets Karen sort of direct him towards where the kid is staring, finding only a quarter on the floor. With what he assumes is the culprit gone, he can hear Peter take a deeper breath, like his lungs were suddenly released.

“That’s it, Pete. Deep breaths. We’re right here waiting for you. Just blink when you’re ready and try moving your fingers and toes. No rush, we’re waiting here for you.” Foggy continues rubbing the kid’s back and forearms, trying to ground the kid through patterned touch.

“He’s trying to replace noise too,” Karen whispers to Matt as Foggy slowly keeps droning on. “I’m going to bring in a candle, take my spot,” she orders, getting up and throwing Matt in. He doesn’t hesitate before sitting down and holding the kid’s hands.

“Matt does this all the time too. Scares the hell out of me and doesn’t even apologize to his best friend,” Foggy smirks at Matt. “But neither of you do it on purpose. Hell, you don’t even know that you’re doing it. We don’t know if this is your first time zoning out either. But it’ll happen again, and we’ll find out what works best.”

And Peter finally closes his eyes.

* * *

Peter can kind of tell nowadays when he’s about to “zone” like Foggy and Matt told him. After sending him home with a phone call to Aunt May, it seemed like they were all handling it. Sometimes – most of the time – it happens when he’s alone, sometimes it’s at school or in the lab with Mr. Stark (which totally freaked the genius out the first time). And even Ned seemed to handle it well when they were at school. He was thankful it never seemed to happen on patrol, when he needed his senses to keep him and others alive. It was always when he was relaxing, when he was calm, and especially after a long night or day using all his heightened abilities.

But Peter would like to point out that he’s only got a few seconds left of functionality before the stimulus entirely engulfs him. And that’s usually enough to call out someone’s name and then just let his zone engulf him. He figured that out too: there’s no real preventing them ahead of time like he’d hoped. Well, other than sleeping or resting on strenuous days.

But he can be pulled out of one pretty quick – quicker than Double D anyway. Foggy said Matt once zoned for three hours, not letting anything pull him out. Peter’s max was 90 minutes. And he woke up from it with Mr. Stark sitting next to him on the couch, his arm wrapped around him, and Ms. Potts holding his hands on the other side of him. The lights were off and they were quietly talking with one another before Peter could ignore the sirens outside of Stark Tower.

And of all his friends and family, Matt was always the best at pulling Peter out of a “zone,” probably because he understood the all-encompassing feeling of drowning in a single stimulus from having used his senses too much, stretching them and himself too thin. And if Peter was honest, he is pretty good at pulling Matt out of a zone too. And if that’s why he spent more time after school at Nelson, Murdock, and Page, well, so be it.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a story I've written a long time ago but finally decided to type and share if you all are interested. It's a little bit inspired by The Sentinel in how these super-senses work, but you don't need to know anything about the show to understand this story (I barely know the show anyways). 
> 
> Enjoy!


End file.
